“They told me I was probably in the wrong job,” recalls Andrew Flack, the recently installed vice-president of global brand marketing for Hilton Hotels Corporation .
At the time, he was taking a psychometric test at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he had begun his career as a chartered accountant. The diagnosis did not look good. “You’d make a great salesperson,” said the tester.
At the time, he was taking a psychometric test at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he had begun his career as a chartered accountant. The diagnosis did not look good. “You’d make a great salesperson,” said the tester.
“I had never done any sales, up to that point,” Flack confesses with a grin. “Who knows what makes you the person you are but yes, that desire to communicate, and to do it effectively, has never left me.”
And so he ended his life as an accountant and began an 18-year career in the hospitality industry - a career that has seen him move from an Asia-Pacific role at Hilton to his current global job.
The affable Flack has all the traits of a good hotelier. He makes you feel welcome in his company in an instant. Although he hails from a family hotel background, it was not until 1990 that Flack finally entered the hotel sector full-time in the UK. He then moved to Australia in 2001 to take on a series of management roles.
It was during this period that Flack was first asked to take on a sales and marketing role. “We had an enormous project at that time to renovate the Hilton in Sydney, a $200 million investment, and I had the task of relaunching that hotel,” he says. The hotel opening was eventful. A walkie-talkie failure meant he had to run down flights of stairs to the basement of the car park to ready a limousine for the opening. He subsequently had to guide the vehicle as it made its grand entry in a street parade. “As the band played and the rose petals fell, I realised I was a marketer, and not a hotel manager anymore.”
Based in Singapore until recently, Flack ran Hilton’s marketing operations from Australasia to Greater China to South Asia. His day-to-day role could see him “involved in corporate account negotiations, which is a very commercial, sales-led activity” or “putting together consumer campaigns round our partnership with McClaren Mercedes for Formula One”. Inevitably, the job entailed a huge amount of travel. And, of course, there are the perks that come with a high-profile hotel role - he took his family skiing in North Japan in February when Hilton opened a hotel there.
But a nomadic lifestyle suits Flack. Born and raised in Malta, the British-Australian has always been itinerant. “I’ve never lived in one place for more than four years,” he says. “I still get excited when I turn up at the airport.”
Today, Flack feels that his hotel chain is growing its global footprint “faster than for many years [and it’s] enabling us to reach out to new customers for the first time and to introduce existing guests to beautiful new properties.” The Hilton brand aims to have a presence in 79 countries by the end of 2009, with China and India being the main focus for expansion.
Indeed, it is Flack’s experience at “expanding Hilton’s position in existing markets as well as identifying new opportunities in emerging growth markets” that secured him the global role, according to Hilton’s global head Dave Horton.
His promotion comes at a crucial time for Hilton. The hotel and travel industry has been hit hard by the recession and now H1N1. Business and leisure travel has been scaled back and many hotels are struggling to fill rooms. Private equity firm Blackstone Group wrote down its US$26 billion investment in the company by nearly half at the end of 2008. But ever positive, Flack feels the recession is an opportunity. One opportunity Flack has identified is the MICE (meetings, incentive travel, conventions and exhibitions) industry. It is also increasing its focus on the Hilton HHonors’ loyalty rewards programme to boost occupancy.
Flack says Hilton was fortunate in that it was among the first to enter many new markets in Asia. A challenge he now faces in his new role is to refresh the brand for newer generations and to get better mileage of out Hilton hotels.
Key to achieving that in Asia will be diversification away from luxury. The company, he says, is working on bringing brands into the region that fit into mid-markets, such as its Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton and Doubletree by Hilton brands.
“What we haven’t done is stretch our brand equity across the markets,” says Flack. “We don’t just want to be full-service and five-star, especially during a recession.”
Andrew Flack’s CV
2009 VP global brand marketing, Hilton, Virginia, US
2006 VP sales & marketing, Hilton Asia-Pacific
2004 Regional director business development, Hilton Australia
2001 General manager, Hilton Sydney, Australia
1998 General manager, Hilton Swindon, England
